Want to help refugees, but don't know how? I found a surprisingly simple answer

I wish refugees didn’t exist. Of course they do. I also wish war, persecution, violence and discrimination didn’t exist.

But for centuries – even millennia – people have been fleeing the lands where they were born precisely because of war, persecution, violence and discrimination. It is as innate a part of human history as giving birth, eating and losing teeth.

Watching men and women throw burning trash cans at hotels used to house vulnerable refugees and migrants gives me the same feeling as if my son had swallowed a razor. The panic, the dread, the paralyzing fear that I have to act, even though I don’t know what to do. But there is something you and I can do. Something much easier than you think.

My husband and I joined Refugees at Home about three and a half years ago. At the time, we were renting a small two-bedroom terraced house in Oxford; we slept in one room, our 18-month-old son in the other. Up until that point, most of the people I had spoken to who were hosting refugees were wealthy landlords, living in London, with spare rooms, offices or even converted attic flats. I had assumed that this was what was expected of them. But I was wrong. When the Refugees at Home person came to interview us, look at the space and explain what would be needed, she made it clear that our sofa bed in the front room, with a shared kitchen and bathroom, would be perfectly acceptable. Our son’s socks on the floor next to a pile of books? Fine. My husband being at work during the day? Fine. That you can hear someone sneezing in the shower from the kitchen? Good. Because the alternative, for everyone we’ve hosted, is worse.

Over the last three and a half years we have hosted a number of young men, all quiet but all better at talking about the Premier League than I am. In that time I have also watched truly terrible Arabic soap operas, bought Lynx shower gel for the first time in my life and washed an Afghan kameez at 40 degrees without thinking about the effect it might have on the embroidery (thankfully it didn’t). Our son has played football with teenagers from Sudan, folded towels to try to make our sofa bed look like a Premier Inn and learned to pick stones from a date. We are ‘emergency hosts’, which means we offer shelter for up to two weeks at a time. I have never asked why anyone left the place where they were born, as that is not my job.

I am now fortunate to have my own little two-bedroom terraced house. We still sleep in one room, our son in the other. When I got the second payment of my book deal, I built an office in the garden and that is now where people stay when they come: family, friends and young men who have fled their homes to avoid persecution and death. One day last winter I saw one of these men kneeling in the garden, barefoot, facing Mecca to pray. I had offered him our son’s room to pray, but, just as he would not drink our tea or borrow my husband’s jumpers when offered, he did not want to impose himself. So, as I washed, I watched his breath turn to steam in the freezing cold and thought how little it takes to offer such hospitality. Right now there are hundreds of people like him, who are afraid to go out, who are afraid for their future, who are afraid of people who came in broad daylight with fire, bricks and wooden planks to try to harm them.

Of course, I like people to think I’m selfless, generous, and a true humanitarian. It reassures me about all the sarcastic and uncharitable thoughts I’ve had (and there are many). But for once, I’m not telling you all this to make you think I’m nice. I’m telling you this because it’s relatively simple, maybe easier than you might think. In fact, many of you might be able to do it too. Refugees at Home has a strong two-way gatekeeping system; it’s entirely consensual on both sides; and it requires a lot less commitment than you might think.

I wish refugees didn’t exist. But since they do exist, I welcome them into my home.

Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood.

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